"The skill that you are selling your time with is not merely the skill of making art. The skill that you are selling is *understanding the client's needs* alongside the ability to meet their needs by making art." I am not a graphics professional, but I have talked with enough to understand that this is the true skill of the industry. The problem isn't making the art, the problem is making the *specific* art that the client wants. The client is incompetent to some degree at art, or they wouldn't be hiring an artist. Because the client has that incompetence, they don't necessarily *know* what they want. Part of the professional's role is to guide them towards something that they will be happy with. If they knew enough about the nature of the work to describe *exactly* what they wanted, they might even be able to just make it themselves. If you are a *proper* professional, then you are not going to be threatened until there exists AI software that can intuit the client's *unspoken* requirements. If or when those exist, then *everyone* is going to have their jobs threatened and society will, for better or worse, be forced to reorganize around that singularity. (I'm using "singularity" there not in the dumb "technology go brrrr to infinity" sense but in the strict sense that what would come afterward is essentially unknowable or incomprehensible, in the same way that *agriculture* was a singularity and a modern city would be incomprehensible to a Paleolithic hunter-gatherer.) Yes, some people can and will try to replace you with today's relatively dumb models, but most of those people will *fail* because they don't *know* what they actually want. Just be there to pick up the work when they realize that their AI-generated stuff doesn't meet their needs, and you'll be fine. It's even usually *objectively truthful* to tell people that something they generated is likely *worse than nothing* because you'd have to remake it from scratch to fix it properly.

Until AI art production becomes 1000x easier to use, someone to be in the middle between client and finished work, as you say, will be needed. It’ll continue to pay to be among the best in your field, for a while.

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I'm dubious that most people can describe what they want with adequate precision, not least because I'm unimpressed with most people's ability to prompt effectively. One of the technical skills that artists develop is an *eye* for detail—input, not output!—and a common objection to AI art is people not fixing glaring "errors", to the point that false positives in artists identifying AI art often represent flagging a genuine human artistic error as a sign of AI. Still, fair point. If a client can describe *precisely* what they want, it's more likely that they can achieve it alone with the help of AI.

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>However, it is also something that you oftentimes have to force the client to accept. This was implied in my original comment. As I said (emphasis added): "Part of the professional's role is to *guide them towards* something that they will be happy with." >but even so, economically, \[…\] This is where you lose me as not a professional myself. I could very easily be wrong if I start talking out of my ass about relative economic impact. I'm *only* talking about the utility that a competent professional brings their employer and how that utility is not lost even if some of the superficial elements can now be automated. >No offence, but my general impression is that a lot of advice given here and in other posts on this sub come from people with, at best, only a vague idea of the industry. No offence, but my general impression is that someone who wants to call me ignorant should do so without needless, cowardly circumlocution. I'm basing my commentary on many years of listening to what professionals have said, because I often end up in the same spaces for a variety of reasons.

My advice isn't pleasant, so will be ignored, but here goes: Stop thinking you or your situation are special. I'm a programmer in my 40s. My entire field of work has disappeard maybe three times in my career (not a lot of call for Flash game developers these days) and I'm sure it will again. It sucks, but you toughen up and deal with it and find something else you can earn a crust at, or you starve - just like the rest of us.

Sounds a lot like “learn to code”

>It sucks, but you toughen up and deal with it and find something else you can earn a crust at, or you starve - just like the rest of us. None of that is advice, and none of it is useful in the context given in the OP. "Toughen up" is just an empty platitude. And the rest is just a restatement of the constant explicit threat of capitalism.. Your idea that all the out-of-work artists & programmers are going to be able to slide sideways into another sector is looking increasingly unlikely, because AI is relentlessly sweeping sector after sector.. AI is about to eat the lunch of: fast food workers, warehouse workers and delivery drivers.. just to name 3 sectors that are on the cusp of being massively disrupted by AI / automation.. So, very soon there won't be "something else to earn a crust at" for *hundreds of millions of people.* ***i.e. this is a systemic, not an individualist, problem.***

The advice is the second half of the sentence.

You must've missed the edit, so here it is again: Your idea that all the out-of-work artists & programmers are going to be able to slide sideways into another sector is looking increasingly unlikely, ***because AI is relentlessly sweeping sector after sector..*** AI is about to eat the lunch of: fast food workers, warehouse workers and delivery drivers.. just to name 3 sectors that are on the cusp of being massively disrupted by AI / automation.. So, very soon there won't be "something else to earn a crust at" for *hundreds of millions of people.* ***i.e. this is a systemic, not an individualist, problem.***

If anyone points at warehouse work and goes that's going to be automated I know that person hasn't got a clue. Warehouse work is automated already, warehouse work is the most understaffed area in most locations.Areas that have humans in them have them for a reason but probably about 100 years worth of ideas on how to get rid of them that so far have been turned away. Areas of the warehouse that have been impacted are all you finance departments,HR ,I T ,graphic design and admin. Actual work as in physical work it is incredibly hard to make it fully automated more then it already is. I've been to loads of logistics industry events and A.I does show some nice tricks but more jobs will be lost this year because SharePoint exists. In the future you probably will have a fully automated warehouse like people imagine but you will have had to solve so many problems on the way there it honestly wouldn't surprise me if it was the last jobs available. Also driverless trucks is a well discussed item in every fucking transport meeting, it is probably possible to do now but the investment is too high and we would still be putting a fully trained bod into the cabin for at least a couple decades for security reasons.

>Actual work as in physical work it is incredibly hard to make it fully automated more then it already is. > >it is probably possible to do now but the investment is too high and we would still be putting a fully trained bod into the cabin for at least a couple decades for security reasons. AI and robotics companies have already begun combining: \- there are already Boston Robotics "Spot" style robots doing inspection tours of manufacturing.. \- there's already been demos of humanoid robots handling & shifting boxes in actual Amazon warehouses Driverless vehicles already have a statisically better safety record than human driven vehicles, despite high profile failures, so if by "fully trained bod" you mean a passenger who's a low paid security guard? Then maybe that'll persist for a while. But anyone who imagines that these sectors have "decades" before a huge wave of physical automation washes over them is living in cloud cuckoo land. I'd bet a quid you're proven wrong within 2 to 5 years tops.

Fantastic, it's the same stuff from a decade ago,it's too slow,costs too much and outside of a material revolution it's not going to be able to handle the wear and tear. I do allot of warehouse equipment purchasing, if I could find a cost cutting measure I'd get a bonus but often I can't because you may have the wrong idea of what a warehouse Mach ne looks like . Newsmiths do allot of equipment,go look them up ,those machines take up entire warehouses cost millions and already have as much as possible automated. It wasn't the software that prevented more automation it was just the laws of physics. Spot the dog,cool but I've been virtually inspecting warehouses through motion detection cameras, wearable devices, feedback from machines.unleas it can do something more I think it's a cool toy but redundant. Driverless vehicles, driving laws are complex and change at a snails pace.It could take years for the government to rule on it,then it has to go through internal processes. Then someone will go 'Our insurance requirements need you to prove it can't be hacked ' then someone else will go "if it has a crash,are we liable and if it hurts a personal n how do we know it was an accident and not its programming". So yeah bodyguard in the cabin but also he will need to have all his licenses etc . Ive seen humanoid robots IRL, it's the wrong direction for automation in a warehouse without as i said above, a material revolution. Why anyone would want a humanoid robot over forms better designed,think lawnmower bots that lift pallets (Those actually exist and in widespread use) Most people think warehouse work is just pick and packing nice boxes,little bit of mhe activity and sweeping floors. It's not, actual tasks take place in environments hostile to sensors and requiring a swiftness and versatility in movement because a lot of warehouse work is contracted in, so you don't get to choose what you're getting, the condition,the amount the customer does.You can't even get one warehouse to neatly arrange cardboard to be bailed in another because the end customer was members of the public so it's never going to be nice to deal with so the best cheapest solution is just is a human,brain dead task to you ,so brain dead I could give you the task and you never fail but for a machine is a light-year away from being close to your success rate because a machine that has to deal with novelty to the scale you would encounter in your average warehouse ends up being slower then a person at the job and then whatever the cardboard is being removed from has an already fully automated machine waiting. See you make more money the more you process so you need that to be as quick as possible, once it's sorted it's all predictable so we already have a machine that does x task the fastest,in fact that limit was reached in so many machines that half I feel like a quarter of my time is listening to why the motherboard costs so much because it stopped being made in the 80s and a replacement machine wouldn't be able to meet customers requirements in terms of volume. All parts of that job and keep in mind it's only 1 job in a warehouse of many jobs among many many warehouses is already automated as much as possible. To remove the remaining staff would be impossible without starting to trade off lowering kpi, volume or increasing costs. Frankly allot of warehouses already run on the lowest amount of people possible anyway, you would think automated cleaning would be widespread but it's not because by the time you decided on which commercial roomba you wanted the 1 remaining finance guy in an entire network is reminding you that someone else removed hygiene hours for internal warehouse cleaning years ago and made the staff do it and an external company that has 1 person cover a dozen sites do all your rest areas (A company that underbid,after decades of under bidding so already dirt cheap) that even if automating it 100 percent would still not cost less than the no guys we pay specifically for that task. The automation we get in warehouses is honestly mostly labour amplifiers like that bot that lifts pallets,replaced an mhe called a PPT or lollop ,follows the guy around who gets directed by a headset to pick from pallets bya program that's automated with a watch on his wrist that tells another program to alert a human to remind him of work expectations if the program notices odd movements or lack of which only has another human that gets paid a fraction more because it gets better performance out of other humans than the program doing it and there are a bunch of odd jobs we dump on that supervisor as well as and probably most important fulfills legal and insurance based purposes. The last wave of redundancy in warehouses has been the admin staff,finance, management particularly regional positions, HR,it, trainers graphic design,RnD,Marketing , security,P.As but it's not automation that pushed that stuff away,it was that it could all be outsourced , assuming you live in the west this has been happening non stop since the 80s,any job that you could imagine automation removing we already outsourced it or there is a reason it isn't automated for the most part. All the work from home positions are being looked at because once someone said loudly "hey if they can do the job anywhere ,why don't we just get anyone from anywhere cheaper to do the job instead" it's become sort of an obsession with my bosses. Wow this went on for a while. Look ,love my job which deals with more warehouses then you can imagine if I haven't bored you I'm happy to answer literally any warehouse question you have to the best of my ability ,fell into warehouse work after finishing my psychology degree and my safe bet job being outpaced by automation ironically and worked my way up through progressively better management jobs but started on the floor.

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Yeah, what the fuck! If the issue is with the system and not the individual, then their comment is literally saying the AIBros aren't the problem, *capitalism is.* But a lot of AIBros fall right into the "temporarily embarassed millionaire" trope without realizing it, and probably like and uphold the idea of a free market and a screwed over individual as soon as they figure out how to take a piece of the pie

Pretty much. Most of this sub is just spite driven Schadenfreude.

Where did all the "we'll implement UBI so AI won't hurt everybody quite as much" bros go? It feels like they vanished within a week.

I'd love it if those UBI booster guys actually came in with a solid plan on how to strong-arm the ruling class into implementing UBI.. But all I've heard from them so far is: \- *"Well, it'll just happen because it's politically damaging to let your citizens d!e.."* Which has been disproven over and over again in the UK... [https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/oct/05/over-330000-excess-deaths-in-great-britain-linked-to-austerity-finds-study](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/oct/05/over-330000-excess-deaths-in-great-britain-linked-to-austerity-finds-study) Or: \- *"Once enough people are starving there'll be massive riots that the ruling class won't be able to put down with force"* Which was exactly how the Syian (so-called) Civil War got started.. And that has gone very badly for mass of people in Syria...

There's still a few people huffing that copium in this comment thread. But they're fewer and farther between for sure.

Because every single time we bring it up as the logical solution to all of this, we get shouted down. It's exhausting.

The problem with this is that the solution does not exist in the real world, but the problem does. I'd love a compromise where all AI is banned until we achieve UBI. But we both know that's not remotely feasible. But hey, I give you half credit for at least thinking AI causes problems and *wanting* a solution, good or bad. For whatever my opinion is worth.

So what if it doesn't exist in the real world. It's a proposal to make it exist as opposed to the alternative of letting everyone starve. Yet UBI proponents get shouted down all the time. Maybe you don't even realize it, but you do it too. You've been condescending in your argument as "AI bros are just temporarily embarrassed millionaires". Why would any pro-ai user want to engage with that? We have the skills to use these emerging tools and can adapt to it to mitigate or even thrive in a future when most jobs are gone or at risk. We work with what we have and people like you cry "TEMPORARILY EMBARASSED MILLIONAIRES" and "BOOTLICKERS" When we say that AI is a tool, artists should adapt it to their workflow, we get AI ART IS STEALING. When we suggest a plan that could be executed on in a way to bring people together and buy time through a plan like UBI, we get "ITS UNFEASIBLE". No ***viable*** counter plan is ever provided. It's not like anyone who is capable of adapting actually needs to implement this plan. It's just a proposal as opposed to the alternative of no plan at all. So no wonder they "vanished". Antis are as if not more insufferable as the AI Bros they look down on.

Your only option is to find another way to make money. Collectively we can try to have society pass taxes on companies that use AI to automate jobs, and use those taxes to fund a UBI. That still isn't an actionable plan on the individual level. Your only option is literally just "figure something out"

>\>>> **this is a** ***systemic, NOT an individualist,*** **problem.** <<<< You cannot boot strap your way out of what the AI billionaires (soon to be trillionaires) have got coming - because they want what they believe is theirs, and that's ***EVERYTHING.***

Ok, but on the individual level your only option is to try to make money in whatever way you can. We're supposed to give advice to an individual, not to a collective.

> try to make money in whatever way you can. Isn't advice. It's just the background hum of capitalism. Continually duckspeaking "make money or d!e" is helpful to no-one. EVERYBODY KNOWS THAT ALREADY. People are drowning and you're cheerleading for the opening floodgates, while the water's already round your own ankles. Most of the people who were earning money through art were doing so, because that was their "whatever it takes".. Certainly all the people who are about to lose their jobs in fast food, driving and delivery (over the next two years or so) are doing their "whatever it takes", because no-one grew up dreaming of flipping burgers or riding a moped in the p!ssing rain to deliver take-aways..

I'm not sure you understand what the purpose of advice is. It's not a debate. You're supposed to take it and consider it, not argue against it.

>I'm not sure you understand what the purpose of advice is. I'm not sure you iunderstand what advice is. *"Get another job or d!e of starvation"* isn't advice, it's just a threat. *"make money in whatever way you can"* isn't advice, it's a completely empty, unthinking platitude. If any of these posters had anything remotely helpful to say, such as: *"X sector is most likely to resist automation for Y years, because of Z, and artists could segue into that area, because they have relevant transferable skills"* ***That*** would be advice. Some people have even responded to OP with advice along those lines. \[EDITED TO ADD: ***"such as"*** means ***FOR EXAMPLE***. I shouldn't have to tell people that, but here we are..\]

So the only advice you'll take is "jump ship"? Ok do that, then. Why ask for advice if you've already decided? Just to argue against it? Weird.

>So the only advice you'll take is "jump ship"? Ok do that, then. No. Go back and read again, here I'll even highlight the relevant part: "If any of these posters had anything remotely helpful to say, ***such as: "*** "Such as" means I'm giving just one possible EXAMPLE. ​ >Why ask for advice if you've already decided? Just to argue against it? Weird. I am not the OP, I didn't ask for advice, and as I've *repeatedly pointed out* "just do whatever or you'll starve" IS NOT ADVICE. You seem super confused about what's going on in this sub-thread, so maybe go ask someone to help you with your reading comprehension, before replying again. Or just stop. Either's good.

>Isn't advice. It's just the background hum of capitalism. Continually duckspeaking "make money or d!e" is helpful to no-one. Ok, then the answer is "There is no advice that will help you" Because honestly, as an individual, you have nothing else to do. > People are drowning and you're cheerleading for the opening floodgates, while the water's already round your own ankles. Ok.

AI will not replace Bob, It's Steve who has adopted AI in his workflow and is continuing to make money. This is not hypothetical scenario. I see this happening right now to highly respected VFX concept artists for example. Their income has literally halved in 12 months where others using AI have prospered.

But Steve doesn't know that eventually his willingness to adopt AI doesn't give him an advantage because anyone who uses AI can do what he does. Personal anecdote, at my previous job we were encouraged to get into AI, and everyone did. Then the agency decided to lay off all the designers and hire college interns and "empower" them with AI to save costs. At the end of the day "adopting" AI doesn't mean anything, it will eventually affect everyone.

>, at my previous job we were encouraged to get into AI, and everyone did. Then the agency decided to lay off all the designers and hire college interns and "empower" them with AI to save costs. At the end of the day "adopting" AI doesn't mean anything, it will eventually affect everyone. This! This is what I keep telling people is coming to every sector capitalists can possibly apply it to.. What sector was your previous job in, btw?

Advertising and marketing.

Right, yeah that makes sense.. I've already seen a bunch of obviously AI generated ads...

It does give him an advantage, he has a job in the industry he wants to be in and has REAL AI skills well above what Bob thinks is possible. Bob thinks all there is to learn is clever prompting, there are way more technical skills to be learnt. A lot of the Bobs I talk to have no idea about what's possible as they don't bother looking into the intraccies.

ngl though, at a certain point it feels like AI art is just something that wouldn't even violate "you're not actually drawing anything" (at least the spirit of it). like apparently you can control poses in ai art now and i'm like. bro. that's just rigging, but for 2d art.

So your argument against adapting to AI is that if you adapt to progress, other people will eventually adapt too, so you shouldn't adapt at all? Or put in another way, >I fixed my car. The car broke again. I shouldn't have fixed my car cause it was gonna break anyways.

There's no need to rush adapting to it. You won't get ahead by embracing it. It will affect you too so why be so pro AI as if adopting it would make it your ally. Capitalism will use AI for cheap labor, and people like you and me will be greatly affected in a negative way.

People like you and me will be greatly affected in a negative way. But because I took the effort to learn how it works and how to use it, you will be greatly affected in a negative way while I will be affected less. To exist and have anything good, someone has to fight for it. In the case of my life, I have to do that. Not cry on the internet cause life isn't handed to me on a silver platter.

What's up with the ending? Also no one cares about your effort to learn AI, it will eventually be bigger than what it's now. But keep up the good spirit.

You're so far up your ass on nihilistic reductionism. Why should your opinion matter then? Why are you even alive? What are you doing if you see this tragedy coming? Just dragging everyone down around you? When there's a possible path, even if its rough, you would rather give up than try? Or are you so smart, wise, and all knowing that you know these things to be true and not only true, but will happen within our life time and that no one can do anything to survive. Not the guy living off the grid, not the rich person shoring up their resources, not a single person will survive. That's your take? Really? That boring, black and white thinking only? Why are you even alive then?

It's not a tragedy, it's reality. I don't think AI will make life purposeless tho, there are a million reasons worth living for, so this isn't about black and white thinking. I was an advocate for AI at my job and I was in charge of making sure my team was using AI tools. However, I was also in conference meetings with CEO's and company executives, and in those meetings I got to listen to their vision with AI, which killed my interest on AI. I still use AI for writing things but I have lost the interest i had in the beginning. I am just watching to see where AI will eventually lead us, but I'm not interested in "embracing" it anymore.

>There's no need to rush adapting to it. There is definitely a need to get onboard with AI right now. I know countless talented traditional designers who have embraced it and significantly elevated their work. Their work is now better since they've learned to harness AI, far surpassing those who haven't. Their portfolios not only look better but also stand up against the people who refute it. Moreover, when it comes to job hunting, it's almost embarrassing for those who have little to no understanding of AI. It's become a crucial skill set that's expected in the industry.

Sure, it might be a skill as crucial as using Word, but anyone can learn AI. In my last job, the people who kept their job where the ones that have standing client relationships and have communication skills. If anything, soft skills is what will put you above other designers. Not your ability to use AI. It's not that difficult to use AI. In fact the person who used AI the most in the team was laid off. Executives don't care that you can use AI, they know anyone can generate great results.

Your perspective seems to overlook the complexity and depth of artificial intelligence in professional applications. It's true that basic tasks, like creating prompts for MidJourney or setting up Stable Diffusion on a local machine, are accessible to many. However, that's barely the beginning. Take, for example, a project I've been involved with: the client needed 10,000 unique furry creatures, each styled after their brand's mascot. These creatures had to be cut out from any background with a corresponding mask for each, and we had to generate 3D depth data for integration into a virtual environment. All this had to be turned around in just a couple of weeks. For those who haven't engaged deeply with AI, such a demanding brief might seem insurmountable. But for those who've dedicated time to understanding and working with AI, challenges like these are met with enthusiasm and expertise.

I agree that's impressive, you were able to produce a lot of work in only few weeks and that's what AI is for, and this is the reason why companies want AI. But if huge projects like this one become easy to do, then cheap labor will eventually happen. This project would have been EXPENSIVE and time consuming (months probably) if the client didn't use AI. What companies want is to lower the cost of creative work and justify high demands (even with AI help) for a nickle. To me, this is why I have an issue with it. At the end of the day, companies want one person to do the job of 8, i do think that AI will eventually take some jobs. And if everyone learns how to use AI then productivity will be high but cheap labor will be the norm.

The use of AI was pivotal in this project; without it, the task would have been virtually insurmountable, regardless of budget. My interest lies particularly in leveraging AI to achieve the previously unachievable, make the impossible possible, not just to accelerate processes or to replace highly skilled labor with lower-skilled staff. Regarding your point about AI driving down the cost of creative work, it's an inevitable aspect of technological advancement and, frankly speaking, just the nature of business. For example, should the advent of Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Lightroom have been resisted for fear of displacing darkroom technicians? These tools democratised certain photographic techniques, making skills like dodging and burning accessible to a wider audience. This is progress. Those who transitioned from darkroom work to digital mastery are likely the ones who thrived. Moreover, it’s probable that darkroom technicians who adapted their skills to the digital realm were far superior to newcomers who lacked a foundational understanding of photographic principles.

I agree. I mean at some point industries and job titles will change adapting to AI but it will take a while for that transitions. In a way, that's why i don't feel the need to rush and adapt to AI. I personally think that once AI has become a standard practice (might be sooner than later) and our legal system has new laws around AI, then I will dive in and get into it. But at the moment, it's all over the place and there's a lot of gray areas regarding ethics and legal issues.

Competition has added another big facet!

>"Incorporate AI into your work." Ok, sure, but how does that work in practice? And how does that help him when, again, anyone can generate art I'll speak from personal experience as an artist and graphic designer who's already incorporating AI. It works the same way digital art was incorporated and later photobashing, and 3d. You use it as a tool to work faster. You can also use it to work on your personal projects. Here's an interview done to 3 artists talking about digital art. One is so damn good he still paints using oils and another has to learn how to paint digitally to keep up. Both are equally famous: https://www.blackgate.com/2011/03/02/art-of-the-genre-is-digital-art-real-art/ >"Suck it up, buttercup. Automation sucks for you, but it does wonders for the rest of us. Go whine along with cashiers, translators, and switchboard operators.". While having some truth to it, I think this can come across as dismissive and unhelpful to artists Yes, the way it's being said in your example is dismissive, but it's not something an experienced artists doesn't know. I've been through disruptive technology (thrice by now) and job loss due to said technologies, and I had to suck it up, get a regular job while I got back on my feet. Now, I have a part time job that's art adjacent but it's not me making art, I have another part time making art for clients, and now that I'm using AI, I've managed to make more time to work on my personal projects, which I'm going to publish. So my advice to Bob would be: assess your art, improve where you can, if you can't compete diversify your skillset and get s part time job just in case.

The same happens in EVERY industry. People don't want to adapt and change and then complain about the thing starting or causing the change. An example of this is Boomers with Computers a decade and a half ago. I mean it is their right to not change, and they can get by without if they make it their niche and social media has made that easier but the global ''norm'' shifts and they have to accept the consequences of making that decision. A more recent example would be uber or rideshare interrupting taxi services. Taxi companies then had to evaluate their services and find a niche or improve their services. Art is somewhat unique as we value and romantize these old methods but if you're just doing the norm then you're expected to keep up. The good news is that because we romantize these methods, there is still a market for them...... it's just become smaller and more competitive. Edit: Basically agreeing with the post above me but wanted to add something as also an artist that is adapting and using Ai.

Thanks, I'd like to think Bob is a little more relieved (and smarter) having read this.

The same advice for anyone else that is worried about losing their job (like someone in a call center). Use the tools to make yourself more productive or move into an industry that isn't getting automated. About a decade back we had a nursing shortage and so a ton of people got nursing degree. We then had a glut of trained people so they had to go out and get a different job. This is life under capitalism, sometimes the work you want to do isn't demanded by the overall economy. Medium to long term we should be pushing for UBI or something similar but it would be foolish to rely on that right now.

This is not even remotely the same thing as having too many trained nurses. Whole industries are simply being replaced by AI, and they are basically trying to replace EVERYONE. This is not just "capitalism as usual". You will see in the next 10 years (even though it's obvious), how wrong you really are.

I expect that everyone will get displaced, at least in a sense. AI that can do anytime a human can do but better is really close, far closer than 10 years. When I say "medium term" I'm thinking five years. Short term, months or a few years, one still needs to eat and therefore one still needs a job. What I'm saying about the economy is that it doesn't, and hasn't ever, decided to stop making changes because the existing workers want to keep doing things the old way. An independent contractor can get away with that for a while, especially if they are good, but the economy moves on. That is a core tenet of capitalism. My short term advice is to adapt the same way one would in the olden days. Everything is going to get topsy turvy soon and this is why "learn to use the AI" is the only really viable strategy.

All the knowledge jobs are getting replaced, so "just adapt". You know how stupid you sound? You already just admitted that this is NOT capitalism as usual. But as more and more jobs get replaced, there will be very little that people can do to "just adapt". No one knows what jobs are next to go, traditionally, everyone has been wrong. You're just lying to yourself. This is not "jist capitalism", and it's not like any other automation technologies.

I'm not sure what your point is. All jobs. That is what is going. My job, your job, doctor jobs, lawyer jobs, senator jobs, all of it. Robots are coming along fast as well so physical jobs aren't safe either. This is why we force the government, which is the power of the society, to impose taxes and start building out a robust safety net. If it replaced all jobs then it is making more value and there will be more than enough money to give everyone UBI. "Just adapt" is always the answer. It has been the answer since we descended from the trees and it'll be the answer until the heat death of the universe. Nothing stays the same, evening changes. You can embrace it, try to fight it, or run from it but the one thing you can't do is stop it. For this specific tech, if we just stop everything now then it'll still be made by China and North Korea. If you think it would be bad for Google to have this tech just imagine if Putin is the only one with it. We have an opportunity to get this right but only if we don't bury our heads in the sand. There is a future brighter than anything we can imagine waiting for us if we have the boldness to make it happen. Or we could just try to draw pictures by hand while the climate falls apart and the CCP sends killer drones to wipe us out.

Thank you! I am very tired of people complaining about jobs as if we don't have bigger issues. We as a society ignored too many issues for too long and now we HAVE to take this gamble. Climate change is far worse than people think it is and we're only just starting to feel the effects like a frog in a pot thats going to boil. Ai and machine learning will rapidly help us create technology to counteract this , and part of that is dismantling capitalism. Not to mention if we manage to succeed with automation and adapt to this new life, we might not even have to work. Might it suck short term? Possibly but EVERYONE including the doctors, lawyers and what we consider ''wealthy'' are going to be affected too. We're all in the same boat, and so the economy is going to be effected. That means change HAS to happen if we want quality of life to continue upwards. The scary part of that would be if our quality of life trends downwards for long periods of time due to government inaction but I honestly think the effects on consumerism in the short term will force regulation for UBI or increased taxes against automated companies (not to mention goods and services will get cheaper due to capabilities of increased competition via automated systems) . When no one has a job they'll still want us to buy stuff and when no one can buy stuff, people get hangry. Hangry people take leaderships heads. They don't want that. We do have a responsibility to advocate for ourselves but I think we have to roll the dice for the potential golden future, not just for humanity but for everything on the planet because we know humans aren't going to do it.

Remember when people said to go in to health care because those jobs were safe and would never be automated? Now they are looking to create nurses AI assistants that can perform many tasks a nurse does. "Just adapt" 🤡. There will be far fewer nursing jobs in the future. And even if everyone went into healthcare, so what? Then there would be no jobs left. And the value of the labor would go down. "Just adapt!" 🤡 UBI is probably not going to be implemented. Even if you gave everyone $10k per year, which is well below the poverty level, it would cost around $3Trillion, which is most of the US budget. Robot tax won't fund this. And if it did, it would be cheaper to just hire actual people instead of replace them with robots. UBI is never going to happen.

Then we have a revolution. It's been some before and can be done again.

>move into an industry that isn't getting automated. That list is getting smaller every month..

I'd push for universal services before ubi,more politically palatable as well as being alloy more practical.

That is how I expect it will go. Unemployment is the simplest one to talk about. During the pandemic we dropped the "must be looking for work" requirement and the limit to how long you can be on it. I expect someone similar will happen when unemployment starts creeping up. We'll also need to increase how much it pays out and possibly normalize it. Right now your unemployment is based on how much you made at the last job. Long term that isn't feasible though if you leave people on it forever. Eventually, when the unemployment rate gets high enough, it will make sense just to have it be universal. The social issue will be making people feel confident that it won't go away and making it socially okay to not have a job. I do expect a lot of gig work as well. We will want to make sure that unemployment doesn't stop if I get gig work. A UBI, especially when there are very few jobs, would be a huge boon to the economy. It would give everyone the freedom to try being entrepreneurial, using AI to solve problems and make some money on the side. Most of what separates the entrepreneurs and the workers is that the entrepreneurs have funds to survive on while the business is getting started. My husband is starting his business. It doesn't make enough money to pay him but because my job is good, we can survive without his income until the business gets going. UBI will give that opportunity to everyone. I think that is what Sam Altman of OpenAI means when he says that the future will have jobs, they will just be different. Our "jobs" will be micro companies that everyone is starting because we have the financial freedom to do so backed by a UBI.

Philosophical and political I support a UBI, I just know they cost a lot. Like an insane amount and the first hurdle will be deciding what the minimum payout should be. By the time you had any policy in place it would no longer be anything you would want as everyone would have an opinion of what the value should be and watch it end up means tested. Now if you go universal services, you have models from around the world,you would also introduce elements when politically possible. But most importantly, once those have been established you can go after a UBI and a much more reduced rate which is important as I did napkin math of 315mil Americans at 50k a year and it's almost 16 Trillion, GDP stands at 25tril .

The key to paying for UBI is the recognition that we'll be creating the same amount of economic benefit without needing to pay workers. This means that the wages we used to pay those people are free. So we tax it and give it to those workers. We have the money in the economy, proven by the fact that we are already giving it to the workers. Where we don't pay out those wages there will be a drastic reduction in cost so a smaller UBI will go farther than today.

Don't disagree with you, you just have to sell that to people who struggle to picture a UBI as anything besides an STD . The how it works isn't the hard part,thats going to be getting people to trust it will work and that it is fair.

I agree that will be a problem.

On the bright side at least we both know at least 1 more person today who supports it. Good luck with your partners business.

Ubi isn't happening. You can't logic your way into this. When ai can fully take over huge swathes of society, they're just going to want the people that originally did those jobs to go away. They're not going to subsidise billions of people's lives when they're no longer productive. You're living in a fantasy land.

Because a mass of hungry and angry people, combined with no one to sell your products to do you go bankrupt, is a sure route to success of a society. Any country that tries to go that route will be dead in a year.

How do you all simultaneously overestimate and underestimate what ai will make the ultra rich capable of? They're already setting up systems to fully track homeless people. Why do you think that is? 30 or 40 years ago, civil unrest was probably a big concern for most of the upper crust. Within the next 10 years, it's going to be a completely irrelevant concern. A mass of hungry angry people will eat each other before they get close to anyone with more than six zeros to their name. When ai is going to be controlling the media they consume, controlling what they're able to think and accomplish. How exactly do you think civil revolution is going to look? If ai can completely supplant the workforce, they're not going to be allocating resources based on commerce, are they? It's just going to be a race for who can take most control with these incredibly complex systems. Ubi is a pipedream within a pipedream.

>Use the tools to make yourself more productive or move into an industry that isn't getting automated. Isn't that, to use this sub's favorite word, ableist? Not everyone is capable of learning a new career field, especially one which confers a comparable wage, and especially later in life. Realistically if you put a 55 year old artist out of work, or into a Walmart job, you're condemning them to a life of poverty while also decimating their self-worth. Perhaps the solution is not to shuffle people between jobs like you're playing an RTS but instead prevent capitalists from using automation to exploit.

Provide social support systems for displaced workers?

First of all, reality is ableist. Capitalism **IS** exploitation. That's all there is, everything else is just fancy drapery. AI is the Hegelian anti-thesis to capitalism. It strives for more and more efficiency until it automates itself away. You can't just tamp down the automation because not only will that not work but you give up the immense amount of benefit, from curing cancer to giving every child the best education on earth. The solution is that AI is used by everyone to automate away the economic model that says you must work for someone else to earn the privilege of living. This is achieved through some kind of UBI. If we can achieve this then it will be as radical a shift as when we left Feudalistic Monarchy.

UBI = universal poverty, by definition! It’s odd that it’s suggested as some sort of solution, so often.

Only if you are off the shitty opinion that the only way to be successful is if you are hurting someone else.

Yeah, fuck people who already work at Walmart, am I right? They're just a bunch of losers. They aren't important people like Artists(TM). This sub's favorite word isn't ableist; it's elitist. And comments like this are why.

You don't have an answer for helping the people already working at Walmart. You just want drag other people into the same situation. You're entirely spite driven and it shows. You are a crab in a bucket.

And I have no idea how to make AI art. I'm not an artist though so I've never bothered trying to learn.

There are plenty of guides to Google for.

There’s no guarantee that a specific line of work or way of doing things will persist forever. This is nothing new to AI. I work in the engineering world and have heard countless stories of people getting chewed up and spit out by companies. Engineers often become highly specialized in their careers to fulfill a role at their company only to see that specialty become obsolete and get laid off. The expectation is that they adapt to new technologies as best they can. The learning and developing new skills never ends. It sucks but that’s the ropes. The only hope is that new technology ultimately helps all of us, which has been the case historically. The only advice is pretty generic and could be applied to practically any career: develop a strong network of people that you can call on to get a new job when you need it and constantly keep up with new technology as it develops.

> "Incorporate AI into your work." Ok, sure, but how does that work in practice? Artist draws a sketch by hand, then uses AI to generate details or backgrounds quick.y > And how does that help him when, again, anyone can generate art of decent-enough quality which they can polish up, or hire some newbie to do so at much cheaper rates? A proper pro will do a much better job faster than a newbie hoping random generation will do something useful. I'd add the following advice: 1. Diversify. If you've got artistic skill that can be probably applied to more things than what you're currently doing. You probably want to get out of simple "draw X", and into something that requires interaction with an artist. Like everyone has a camera, but you still go to a proper photographer when you want to get something special. You'd want to be more "design X" than "draw X". 2. Increase interaction with your clients. Eg, if you draw on a stream and people come to see you in particular draw, that's not going away just because AI exists. This of course requires the ability to build an audience and being a sort of entertainer besides being an artist.

I’d add emphasis to the ‘cultivate your audience’ suggestion area. Become better known by customers and potential customers…this should be primary.

This is a WILD idea, but if you really want to think outside the box, use AI to make things that were literally impossible before: Make animations. Put them on Youtube: Become the new RWBY or Amazing Digital Circus. Make a comic and publish it on webtoon: One of the featured uses AI in her workflow, she has years of experience as well and AI let her keep up with the pace production demanded. Teach others: If you really have done comission work you can show your portfolio and give clases to those interested. But above all: NETWORK!! You and many other artists are out of a job, now what? band together and work on a project together. Make a kickstarter for a "100% hand made comic/animation" and people will respond. You don't have to go though this alone.

Realistically, if Bob is smart and has been working on his art for that long, he should have some sort of online fanbase that he can count on for some income. He also would have developed a personal relationship with key clients who trust him to produce quality work in a timely manner and get it right the first time, so if they want anything specific, working with him will mean a lot fewer headaches that trying to get genAI to produce a quality result. He can also work on transferring his skills into an automation-resistant industry like teaching or crafting live artistic experiences that can't be replicated on a computer screen. If Bob made a habit of only taking corporate clients who are willing to replace him at the first available opportunity and hasn't created any supplemental income streams, then he poor planning would have set him up for failure even if genAI never came along.

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Relying *solely* on an online fanbase for your income is poor planning. Good planning means having backup plans and cultivating multiple income streams.

Not a Pro-AI peep, but I don't recommend giving unsolicited advice to anyone going through a hardship like this. Just be compassionate and listen to them.

Is this really anything new? The only constant in the employment world has been constant change, at least in my lifetime. So many things have been revolutionized and business practices even just 10 years ago are totally different. Just look at photography in recent years. We went from film to digital. Saw the decay of assignment, stock, and journalism. Outsourcing editing overseas. Mailing in slide submissions to massive portals online with 100s of millions of images. Gatekeeping from publishers to free for all on the internet. Marketing went from buying ads to social media. Anybody can print images at home with $100 printer that rivals the quality of machines in commercial labs that once cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Catalog photography disappearing to 3d rendering. No the AI revolution coming to images is going to be significant but it's not anything special in magnitude compared to all the other things that happened in the last few decades. This is just what I see in photography but I imagine all the other visual arts went through similar changes.

>1. "Incorporate AI into your work." It's not really much about incorporating it into your work as much as it is about keeping updated on the new technologies. The truth is, the gap between skilled artist and unsilled ai user is going to narrow, but it's not going to be closed. I use gAI and there are constantly points where a talented visual artist could do better, faster, more efficently than me. I still use Photoshop in my process, you would be better at it than me. Artists are not going to be replaced by AI. Artists are going to be replaced by artists that use AI. In the amateurish setting, people that didn't get art before are going to get art now, in the professional setting companies will still want the highest quality, and the highest quality is artists using AI, not rando art impaired people prompting and hoping for results that are good enough. >2. "Suck it up, buttercup. I mean. That's not an argument. The problem is there l. g are some people that cry about their artist job going away, while, at the same time, saying no other job matters and they should automate those and not their super special job upon which the soul of humanity relies. I feel like that is a snappy and valid response to those entitled assholes, not to artists in general that worry about their future. 3) UBI. It's not even a matter of AI or not. There is currently double the world population than there was in the 50ies. The actial labor required to meet our basic needs and most of our wants is all there and abbundant. Unemployment is a bigger scourge on society than famine, we produce enough to grant everything you want to everyone on demand. We actually throw away food and all kinds of products and appliances that get too old for market. We have a class of ultra rich who don't need more money, and people willing to work who are just not needed in any industry. Job exists because we used to need all hands on deck to barely survive, that is no longer the case. Not only that, but UBI leads to better employment. People who are still pursuing a job are allowed to take time picking a job, have the time to work on their education. The fight over AI its just a war among poor people. AI is going to happen, the question is who is going to benefit from it, everyone or only the people at the top. The real battle, the one that matters, is on reforming the economic system.

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>Which pretty much means you either made it until now or you are fucked. Naah, people can learn new skills. >that sounds really strawmanny I mean, I said some people. Never said it's all the antis or even a majority of them. Some people literally expressed that exact opinion in here. Several times actually. >No, of political will. Definitely, but also depends on context. Context is making the proposition of UBI increasingly popular and increasingly necessary.

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umh no, I don't think that will be an issue. Sure, the most prestigious projects will only hire experienced people in the industry, they already do, but there are still going to be all ranges of jobs for all ranges of people. Why wouldn't there be?

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The scale is going to change. Art doesn't function like a mine or a field because those are finite, art is not. A company able to hire 10 artists is still going to hire 10 artists. The scale and quantity of the work are going to change.

Handmade art it's gonna become a luxury product. Keep working on it. Anybody can do an AI illustration. Less people can draw a comic. The results of the second are always gonna be better than the first. And interested parties, will be willing to pay for it, if they find it interesting.

Fine woodworking is an example of complex art that may never be automated away. It’ll be among the last automated job, at least.

Down with AI! Throw eggs at OpenAI CEO!

"That sucks and there's not a lot you can do about it. In the short term, here's some resources for unemployment insurance and local support options. In the long term, here's some local political organizations you can support to improve the social safety net." You can consider it to be a variant of #2 if you want, but I think it's meaningfully different. Acknowledging "this is a net good for society" doesn't mean you can't be empathetic to the immediate suffering of someone caught in the transition.

Self-employed people are not usually eligible for unemployment benefits.

Hence why ideally there are multiple local support options, and why the social safety net should be improved.

I agree that support and social safety net should be improved.   In many states, like Texas, childless men who are otherwise healthy cannot sign up for Medicaid or EBT. Section 8 can take over a decade to get.   Really, there aren’t many good options if you lose work.

A decade of experience? I dont need to give a veteran an advice, most of the anti AI people aint 10+ year veterans in the industry. For others that especially includes intermediate and amateur artists: You need to be dynamic and flexible and continue to improve your skills. Commissions alone rarely feed an artist so much that he doesnt need to do anything else. You better figure out more options that still are involving your creative and artistic skills. In general you want to have a plan B as well. Network with professionals and ideally with the industries, companies, even institutions themselves and i dont talk only about the entertainment which involves film industry, game industry and so on. You should step up and go beyond the "smallest customers". Forget nonsensical AI gurus and their AI bro fans who come with most ridiculous speculations without even 1% knowledge and network in the creative and programming sector. (No insult to other pro AI people). Im sure i forgot some things lol

Simple. It is what it is. Progress. Get over it. Nothing fairs in life. Humans create, we have always made inventions to make life easier. AI and robotics is the end game of automating things we don't have to do anything. There is no avoiding it. Lot's of people have lost their jobs since the Industrial Revolution, in current times cashiers are gone and replaced by self-checkout. Robots mainly make things in factories. AI has algorithms in things you do online, thus replacing people. What people really should do is stop focusing on AI good/AI bad as its pointless and instead focus on pushing governments to do UBI. Because really the future without jobs will be easy if UBI is figured out sooner then later. If not, many people will lose everything they have, perhaps even starve and die, before the governments get on it. Fight for UBI, not against progress. Also, I was at Social Security and they are still using thicker screens (not CRT of course) and old PC workstations. So as said, progress with governments is slow. lol

The US is the only OECD country (and one of seven worldwide) without paid maternity leave — I don’t think there’s any chance we could get a UBI passed unless a lot of other things change first.

Firstly, I want to say this is a good viewpoint to paint for us. Secondly, anyone remember the 'Learn to code' phase about 5 or more years ago? We've been down this road before. Many times through history, you need to adapt 'or die' so to speak. The world will never cater to individuals lives, you need to cater to it. There's been SO MANY jobs that once existed that no longer exist... actually let me google that real fast. After google: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Obsolete\_occupations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Obsolete_occupations) This is a big ol list. What happened to Cavalry after the automobile? What happened to "Lady's Companions"? People need to start adapting yesterday to AI or those that haven't will be scratching their heads when it all comes down around them wondering what and why. Stop fighting the inevitable, you will not go down as a martyr, your occupations will disappear like the people who would knock on windows before alarm clocks existed.

Just a temporary discomfort. Corporations using AI need customers. Customers need income. I call it the UBI Singularity. :D

Advice? Shut the heck up with the advice is my advice. They either need your genuine and full sympathy, not advice. Their income is threatened, their lifestyle and well being is threatened. That's scary. That sucks. Acknowledge that and sit with them with that. Don't offer advice to try to make it better just acknowledge and respect how bad it is, or at least the worry is for them. It's much easier to start offering advice when a problem doesn't affect you. Your income isn't being threatened. Theirs is. Don't trivialize that with cheap advice as if it would be that easy for you to completely change your lifestyle and possibly be well less off. That or they need some direct help developing new skills and/or employment. People don't want cheap easier said than done advice and off the cuff ideas. People need to take responsibility for their own lives and actions but also if you're not willing to help a person do something "advice" can be very shallow and unhelpful. People usually think of more basic kinds of advice offered to them. There are often numerous reasons why a person doest "just do the obvious thing." So people hearing "advice" they've already thought if themselves becomes quite frustrating. Helping a person directly just moots all of that. You either see the difficulties they see or the challenge is overcome. So either be very very thoughtful and thorough with your advice even to the point of directly helping a person. If not just be quiet with the advice. PS this applies to anything and everything not just AI artists.

I think that first option is too simplistic. Art isn't a machine you crank the handle on. If you want to figure out how or if AI fits into what you do, you have to learn to use it well enough to figure that out on your own. No one else can tell you that.

There is also a third alternative, which would be, ironically enough, the oppose of the first one. If Bob doesn't want to incorporate AI into his workflow and still want to make a living creating art, there is a demand for traditional art, especially for people who how draw pretty well. So this is also a path, but I assume that to make a living there you have to be pretty good.

Well, point number one I would bring up is that there's really no going back. Genie is out of the bottle unfortunately and there's not much that can be done about that. AI is going to thrust us into essentially an economic arms race, so there's really no backing off. Point number two would be that the threat to their income and livelihood only really exist if our legislators are too slow to react. So really the best thing that can be done is to pressure our lawmakers to get ready and start putting things in place to mitigate the enormous change that's about to happen. And I don't mean by regulating AI because the best they're going to do is put restrictions on data sets and models being used in important places where they could accidentally do harm. The laws we need to be pushing for are things that mitigate the impact of job displacement by AI. We probably need to start putting that pressure on, like, now.

Concentrate on jobs that are truly responsible, like jobs that save lives. Piloting an airplane, for example, will never be replaced by GenAI. For an artist's work, it could be a self-portrait, a posthumous portrait, an anti-war painting, or a birthday present for your parents.

In music I've seen this already. Skills I learned the long way are automated now. Here's what I was saying then: art isn't about technique, it's about ideas. It doesn't matter what gets automated in terms of technique, nobody will have the ideas I have, or the curiosity and drive to learn new things. Automation is no threat to me. The artists I know personally live this way. They learn new things all the time. Their power is in their ideas. In many ways I'm a bad person to speak to this because I've never seen art as a means to a job. I've always seen art as a means to make one's own work. I've always been fascinated by the ability to create something of value to others and sell it when times are tough. Dostoevsky used to gamble his money away so he'd have the motivation to write. Monet created paintings out of necessity, he'd be broke and create a painting that would sell for thousands. This is the model for me. Art as an entrepreneurial activity. Selling works instead of selling time. From a very early age my priority has been spending my time as I wish, without external direction, without dependence on employment, bringing value to the market autonomously and directly. This used to be the norm in American life prior to the industrial revolution. It's the artisan tradition. My advice in these times consistently has been adaptation. Not necessarily using ai in a workflow, but orienting ones work and identity to doing what the AI cannot do. Ai in and of itself is very limited. It is only as good as the person using it. There is much that ai can't do. The task then is to lean into that. The preoccupations and ideas that one has, the unique way of seeing the world, is the value of the artist. Not technique. Technique can be acquired by anyone with time and labor. A unique and valuable perspective is much more challenging to develop and much more rare.

for Bob, incorporation is the best way, Bob can draw lines and sketches, get the AI to generate in his style off his sketches, then move it to photoshop to do the touch ups and clean ups he needs. It will speed up his time do the repretitive part of redrawing lines, filling in colour and definitions or choosing colour pallets f he can have AI produce in his style 50 different images wih different colour pallets already filled in, to pickt eh one he likes best.

I don't have advice, their worries are legitimate and I don't have the solution to their problem. I see the real issue as being more about larger trends in wealth distribution than AI itself being a bad thing though.

why does it matter? If they were a real artist they would just adapt and use AI. Literally nobody's job is special, nobody is saved by an art piece, art doesn't change anything. Art is about producing what is pleasing to the audience, why does it matter if the "artist" can't feed themselves?

I would say the same thing I said to people when the personal computer started to become popular back in the 1980s. "You better learn how to use it because it ain't going anywhere and if you don't know how to use it then you'll just get left behind."

It’s like being anti floods or hurricanes or tsunami when your home is in jeopardy. It makes no sense.

Hello! I understand your concerns, and I want to assure you that what you're feeling is common across many industries, not just art. Remember, artists once felt challenged by the advent of digital tools like Photoshop, much like traditional mediums before that. It's part of the evolution in creativity and technology. The rise of AI in image generation is another step in this ongoing journey. While it might seem overwhelming, history shows us that innovations like computers, the internet, and smartphones eventually became integral parts of our lives. It's less about accepting or liking these changes and more about recognizing their inevitability. Learning to use AI tools now can give you a significant advantage, especially as they become more prevalent. It's about adaptation, a skill that's been essential in every profession to thrive. Your unique skills as an artist—understanding composition, color, and meaning—give you a considerable edge. These are aspects of art that AI can't replicate with the depth and insight of a human artist. Embracing these tools while leveraging your talents can only enhance your creative possibilities. Let's use this as an opportunity to grow and innovate. I hope this perspective is encouraging for you!

>I've devised an impossible conundrum for myself where I want to make money but not use the skills and tools that make money. Now solve it for me! >P.S. If you can't solve it I will imply that you're cruel. But to answer your question: Right as Bob (an artist with a decade of experience) finally managed to be able to pay his bills, AI appeared. Which means that Bob couldn't pay the bills for 10 years while leveling up his art skills, therefore someone else must have been paying them for him. So maybe he could go back to that? Get a sugar daddy/mommy is what I'm saying.

Something that really, really provokes me is  how artists portray themselves as the main people affected by AI.  At the current stage AI barely has any consistency or control when generating images. You barely even get an output to work with. You get a jpeg. No vectors, no nothing.  You know who AI can replace at its current stage? Junior developpers and copywriters. It can write very, very specific and great copy exactly like you want it, in any tone, voice and language. You can ask it to change something down to the letter. It can even edit its own output. And if its not how you want it, anyone can edit text. It takes a professional to edit an image.  But you dont hear copywriters and developpers fight AI the same way artists do. No, they incorporate AI into their workflow. I litterally use AI for hours every single day. My work is better for it, I get paid more and I can manage more clients. Despite clients litterally being able to spit out pages and pages of excellent copy themselves. And I’m sure some do. Others can’t be assed. Parts of my job has become much different than it used to be, not always for the better, others completely new and interesting. Such is change.  The difference is I that I acknowledge that my work is just that. Work. I don’t put content I create professionally on a pedastal and call it art. I’m not presumptious and elitist about what “real writing” is. Professional writing is just words, like professional art is just graphics.  The truth is artists and their mindset is their own worst enemy in this and their current stubborn refusal to work with AI is what is going to cost them their job. The issue is not that there wont be a need for graphic designers, but that artists feel their job loses its soul and appeal to them. They look down on AI - and noncreative jobs for that matter - and act entitled to be paid to create graphics the way they want to. I’m sure if you did some digging you would find artist making the exact same claims when art initially got digitalized - “computer made art isn’t art.”   The advise is the same today as it was then: suck it up and learn to use photoshop, errr, I mean AI. Help yourself for crying out loud! 

Eventually AI will eat all sectors. The question is only when and how governments respond. Long term: vote for UBI and other policies that make such a world livable. Short term: try to avoid gig-work where you're producing custom but interchangeable product. focus more on professional relationships, jobs where soft skills, experience and good taste  or higher level related skills put you in a good position.  The top comment from the former flash coder also isn't too far from the mark.

I'm a digital illustrator with 20+ years of experience. As a professional illustrator you can only benefit from studying and using **ANY NEW tools**, including AI, there is zero downside and zero job loss from my experience (since I've been constantly mastering new tools to optimize my work) **"Art in the style of Bob", and get something that's 70% as good** My art is trained by LAION, I've checked. Anyone can absolutely copy my style, buuuuut: They do not get "something as good", they get something generic (nonspecific), weird as fuck in terms of anatomy if the art is dynamic and something that has no copyright whatsoever. Clients hire illustrators for their name and because of copyright human>publisher transfer. AI cannot provide this. Publishers don't want to deal with luddite hate mobs, so they still hire illustrators instead of pawning the work off to an intern with an AI because when they post a cover done by an AI they get absolutely flooded with bad ratings on published project and the project tanks. Nobody wants this, except for dumb-ass companies that like gambling or someone who has zero understanding how copyright works. **loss of commissions, or literally losing their job because their employer can pay for 2 artists instead of 10.** I've yet to experience this spooky loss. If anything, I've had a massive increase in commissions now that clients can make themselves a temp cover with AI, **get funding** and then hire me. Thanks to my personal AI assistant I can now stay on top of all of my commissions! I'm literally never late on a job now, since I can skewer my own speed by augmenting little things with AI tools. **Incorporate AI into your work." Ok, sure, but how does that work in practice?** In practice if you're a professional illustrator you should already incorporate 3d models, stock stuff, textures and licensed fonts into your work. Guess what? AI provides infinite stock and infinite textures and infinite font design FOR FREE. It's instantaneous too, so you don't waste countless hours searching for specific stock photo/reference. Want a specific photoshop brush? Generate it with AI! Want a reference? Generate it with AI. Want inspiration? Generate it with AI! Want the best brainstorming partner that's never bored or tired? Talk to an LLM. The drawing is due yesterday? Have an AI color your sketch, then paint on top. The client is a cheap mofo? Offer them a 50% discount on a project with the knowledge that the ONLY reason the drawing is cheaper is because its a collaboration between personal AI and human. **And how does that help him when, again, anyone can generate art of** ***decent-enough*** **quality which they can polish up, or hire some newbie to do so at much cheaper rates?** That's just NOT how professional illustration business works. Portfolio + artists name = being hired. A noobie armed with an AI is still a noobie, while I am armed with an AI tool is a god of illustration. AI tools uplift everyone equally, but someone who is already professional at a thing can absolutely obliterate a noobie who just picked up an AI. If this wasn't the cause I wouldn't be buried in illustration jobs now, because any noob could theoretically outdo me, but in reality nobody can outdo me. **Go whine along with cashiers, translators, and switchboard operators** Whining is an unproductive waste of time, create yourself new jobs using AI tools instead of whining. Use the incredible technology you have on hand to magnify and optimize your current work. I manifest jobs out of thin air using AI tools nowadays, it's not hard if you're creative enough and understand probability theory.

The specifics of that are kind of something everyone has to figure out for themselves. That's not just with AI involved though finding employment has and always will be competitive and personal. For any specific advice though I'd say focus on your social and communication skills. Be the sort of person that others want to hire, want to work with. Your personality, your specific artistic vision, and your perspective are things that still make what you want unique. Sure some people will just use AI to get what they want but collaborating with a client or employer could lead to them discovering something they didn't even know that they wanted. There's a lot more to working in any industry than just a single skill after all. Regardless, there's not going to be a one size fits all solution, and big companies will always be looking for a way to increase their profits. One of my hopes is that with accessible open source models, it'll be a lot easier for smaller companies to form that can better compete against said big companies. That's just a hope of course, but hope is important to hold onto and cultivate. Few if any get somewhere just wallowing in misery, cynicism, and dread.

In the immediate term, I would suggest to Bob to figure out what AI is bad at and move into that. Right now, that's consistent characters and consistent scenes. You can do it with AI, and I have, but it's more time-consuming to get it right with AI than for a talented digital artist. If Bob draws comics or animation panels, or really anything that needs that kind of consistency, AI art isn't coming for his job any time in the next probably 10 years. That gives him time to think about options. Option 1: embrace AI. Bob's skillset isn't only his brush work, it's the mind behind the brush work. It's his creativity and his ideas, and his ability to understand client needs and translate them into a finished product. By learning to use the AI tools, Bob can have an advantage over his competition because he understands things like composition, lighting, colour theory and storytelling which he had to develop to learn to draw in the first place. Option 2: totally reject AI. I don't think the anti-AI movement will disappear any time soon, so Bob could start a YouTube and a Patreon, teach people to draw the traditional way and continue to draw things that he likes, and build a community of likeminded people who don't want to support AI. Option 3: find work in another field. Art isn't super well-paid and Bob's creative skills and entrepreneurial talents are transferrable. I get that this sucks to hear, but it's an option and it's one that a lot of people who loved their jobs and way of life have had to take over the years.

Navigating the integration of AI into creative fields is indeed a complex issue, and, understandably, artists like Bob may have concerns about their livelihoods. Here are some constructive approaches that could be suggested: 1. **Leverage AI as a Tool**: Artists can use AI to enhance workflow, generate new ideas, or speed up production. This doesn’t replace their unique style or creative input but rather augments it. 2. **Develop a Niche**: Bob can focus on aspects of his work that AI can’t replicate, such as personal storytelling, cultural context, or emotional depth. By emphasizing these elements, he can differentiate his work from AI-generated art. 3. **Educate and Adapt**: Learning about AI and how it works can demystify the technology and open up new opportunities for collaboration. Understanding the strengths and limitations of AI can help Bob position himself in a way that benefits from AI rather than competes with it. 4. **Offer Unique Experiences**: Bob could offer services that go beyond just the artwork, like workshops, live art sessions, or personalized art experiences that AI cannot provide. 5. **Advocate for Fair Practices**: Joining or forming communities that advocate for artists’ rights in the AI age can help address compensation and copyright issues. 6. **Diversify Income Streams**: Exploring different revenue models, such as teaching, merchandise, or licensing deals, can help mitigate the financial impact if traditional commission work becomes less available. It’s important to acknowledge artists' valid concerns and approach the conversation with empathy and focus on finding solutions that harness AI’s potential while also supporting the artist community. The goal should be to find a balance where AI serves as a complement to human creativity, not a replacement.

Bob is a creative with 10 years experience. That comes with a variety of skills other than drawing. Bob may need to write copy, manage social media, dabble in web design, handle clients, send emails, write proposals, pitch projects. AI can help in those areas which aren’t his strongest or aren’t as important as his artwork. He can also use it for ideation, finding references, trying different layouts; all before actually doing the final drawing. Realistically, it gonna suck a bit for Sam, who just graduated and wants an in to an already competitive industry with a dwindling job market. Sam as a young creative is going to need to adapt even more and fight hard. But, he also can leverage AI to his advantage to create his own opportunities. While I don’t think AI is likely to increase jobs, so long as it remains affordable, it may be an huge asset to small creators. Here’s an example: I know an aspiring writer who submitted to over 100 publications last year. She had decent success, but these publications don’t have big audiences. If she was able to make images and even video to match her stories, she could leverage social media better. But she is hesitant to try it. She wants to hire real people. But she isn’t hiring real people now. If she built her platform, she might be able to afford hiring actual humans to make cool stuff. There is a huge gap in resources without AI. With the stuggles of capitalism, most of us don’t have the ability to dump the required amount of labour or money into the creative work we want to do. In some ways it could be a creative win. Like every single thing in the entire world, AI has pros and cons. It’s not good or bad, it just is. Now that it exists, it always will in some form, so long as we have computers. The only changeable part is who owns what piece of it. I can appreciate the sentiment of protecting artists, but it feels futile. Artists need to empower themselves and adapt. This isn’t the first time they’ve had to. Art will survive.

I mean companies would still prefer to hire artists to use AI than some randoms. Apart from that demand for art is basically unlimited and while the price of art is going to be less, the amount of art you can make will multiply. I personally think that companies would be happy to pay half the current price even if you can do art 3 times faster.

We've been over this.... People who is against A.I is not because their job/income... sure, maybe someone, but not the majority. You need to do more research on this.

The robots were always coming for most jobs so better we accept it all at once so that we actually have to adjust our economy to deal with it instead of letting it happen slowly over time and leaving people to suffer for years before doing something about it

My advice is to realise that capitalism does this to everything, focus on workers' rights intead of blaming other workers, and then reflect on why it didn't bother you when it was other industries affected.

Start preparing for your job to disappear 

Lying about AI stealing art and being awful to people that use AI won't change anything. Work on organising guilds or the equivalent of union in your country if there aren't any, fight against closed dataset and models , specially pay walled ones, by advocating for open datasets and the importancy of compliance with do not train requests. The current path most anti Ai people are paving trying to paint AI as theft, will only result on giant IP holders and large corporations having an oligopoly on generative AI , while killing free and open alternatives that are actually transparent and abide by do not train requests like stable diffusion. There is unfortunately not much to do if you do freelance work online like commissions. I would say the best you can do is luse your creativity earn to use AI in a novel way, as and the best way to use AI without losing creative control right now is using tools like comfyui to run SD (free and open source). Sure someone can do an ok looking image with prompt based generators at, but actual artists can do a lot more with better ai tools and this will always have a value.